Thirty-two

Patrick had found a moment in between dancing and cleaning to ask if I would drive him to the airport. And I had found a moment to say yes, even as I wondered if Michael was at my house, waiting for my return.

“This has been a gas,” Patrick said on our way to O’Hare. “Sophie and Pete are just like they always were. I mean, none of us looks the same but we’re the same people inside, aren’t we?”

“I’m glad you came,” I said. “Sophie and Pete are, too.”

“So, you gonna come visit me in Florida?”

I looked over at him and smiled. “That’d be nice, wouldn’t it?”

“Then do it, Lib.”

“I wish it were that easy.”

“I know it’s not easy. I know things are complicated for you,” he said, and put his hand on my shoulder. “But sometimes we make things more complicated than they need to be. Sometimes the solutions are right in front of us.”

“What do you mean?”

“Marry me, Lib,” he said, and I almost sideswiped a red Toyota. “Don’t marry Michael. Marry me.”

I could feel his eyes on me. My heart felt as if it would thump through my rib cage. “Marry you? Oh my god.” No one had mentioned the word “marriage” to me in a hundred years (except my parents, of course) and now it was all anyone could talk about.

He laughed. “Okay, don’t freak. You don’t have to marry me. Just come live with me.”

“Oh, Patrick. What are you saying? We don’t even know each other anymore.”

He took his hand away, leaving my shoulder cold and empty. “We haven’t changed,” he said. “We know each other like we knew each other thirty years ago. We have the same connection now that we had then.” He turned his body toward me, a serious look on his face. “It’s like Denny Cavanaugh and Jess. They had a connection that couldn’t be broken even though they left each other for a while. Sometimes that happens.”

I couldn’t deny what he was saying. I couldn’t say it hadn’t occurred to me. But there was the other side to that coin as well; the side that said what we’d had was a high school love affair, that’s all, not the real world.

“I’m not going to deny there’s still a connection,” I said. “But all the living we’ve done has changed us. We’ve had these experiences and relationships, and all that can’t help but change us from what we were back then into who we are now. Yes, maybe basically we’re the same people, but so much life has to have affected us in ways we can’t even calculate.”

We approached the departures terminal. Soon he would be on a plane and I might never see him again. I pulled over to the curb. People bustled around us, getting luggage out of trunks, hugging goodbye.

“Look, Lib,” Patrick said, his brown eyes intense.” I love you.” He loved me? How could he say that? He put up his hand when I started to interrupt. “That’s not up for debate. Whether you believe it or not, it’s true. It’s clear to me. We’ve wasted enough time. We’re not getting any younger. We’ve missed out on thirty-some years but we don’t have to miss out on the next thirty.” I thought my head was going to explode. “So just come and visit me,” he said. “Take some time, get away for a little while. Forget the marriage part; I didn’t mean that.”

“You didn’t mean it?” I said.

“Well, not for now anyway. Not so long ago I was giving you a lecture about making too many life changes, wasn’t I? So we’ll take our time. You need some time to heal from the loss of your dad and we don’t need to rush into anything. You need to be sure that whatever you do, you do for the right reasons. But let’s spend a little time together—a few days, a week—and see what happens.”

“I’m just not sure this is a good time,” I said. Why wasn’t I saying, Great! I’m on my way?

“It’s the best time,” Patrick said and took my hand. “You owe it to yourself.” When he saw the look on my face he said, “No, really, you do. And you owe it to Michael, and believe me I’m not his cheerleader. But if there’s even the smallest part of you that’s considering it, you need to find out, even if it means discovering I’m wrong. At least you won’t end up married to Michael and wondering what might have happened.”

Part of me wanted to go with him now, right this minute. Really … did I want to live the rest of my life with a “what-if” hovering over me?

He cupped my chin, kissed me sweetly, swept the hair off my forehead. “Think about it, okay?”

His face was so close, his breath a whisper on my face. I felt dizzy. “I will,” I said.

He smiled broadly. “Okay, great. That’s good enough for me.”

*   *   *

I could think of nothing else as I lay in bed that night. I imagined Patrick picking me up at the airport in … what? I didn’t even know what kind of car he drove. An SUV? Volkswagen? Mercedes? Rusted-out Impala? So we’d drive in this mystery car through the streets of his town lined with palm trees and pink stucco houses, and pull up in front of his place—which would be what? A house, a condo, a beach shack? I didn’t even know. Maybe it was a mansion. Maybe a double-wide trailer. Maybe he was one of those hoarders you see on television and every surface was buried under piles of crap.

I knew nothing about this man.

Would we stand there awkwardly, not knowing what to do or say? And where would I sleep?

Questions rocketed through my brain, shoving sleep right out the door. I lay on my back examining the landscape of the ceiling. Rufus jumped up and looked into my eyes, meowed in his squeaky, mournful way and then climbed onto my chest and lay there purring. I closed my eyes and tried counting sheep. I got to eighty-five of those fluffy little critters jumping over an imagined white picket fence, but my mind was on speed dial, recalling Patrick saying I should marry him, the softness in his eyes when he looked at me, Michael’s bruised expression when I’d told him I was going to the brunch without him. So I sent little Michaels over that fence and counted them instead, and then little Patricks. They were good jumpers.

I would go. I knew that. Even though I also knew it was going to be a huge problem for Michael, an obstacle he might not be able to get past. But Patrick was right—if I didn’t, I’d always wonder. Chances were so slim that this could work, but I had to find out.

It was past midnight when I picked up the phone to call him, past one A.M. his time, but I didn’t hesitate.

“I’m coming to visit,” I said when he sleepily answered the phone. There was silence and I started to think he’d changed his mind but then he said, “Mom?”

I laughed and laughed.

“I’m so glad,” he said in a wide-awake and delighted voice. And then, “Whoa, I better look for my vacuum cleaner.”

The pleasure in his voice jumped right through the wires and landed happily in my heart.

When I finally slept I had a dream that Michael and Patrick were in a track-and-field event and were neck and neck as they jumped over hurdles toward the finish line.

I didn’t need Freud to interpret that one.